TO Lancashire, where a woman’s six siblings have been arrested for trying to kidnap her white, non-Muslim girlfriend and threatening to murder her. They did because she had “messed with the wrong Muslims”.

Nazma Ditta, 28, one of nine children, was having a love affair with Sarah-Jane Harrison, 35, a colleague at Blackburn’s USC Clothing clothes shop. One day in June last year, a trio of Nazma’s sisters accosted Harrison outside the store. They beat her up.

Nayyar Mehmood, 38, the second eldest sister, had texted her siblings: “A kaffir [non-believer] is taking over.” Nighat Morris, 39, her sisters Tosif Ditta, 35, and Ghazala Ditta, 31, hit Harrison and tried to force her into a car as Tahmoor Ditta, 26, one of Nazma’s brothers, armed with a sharp bradwl stood guard. One of the sisters yelled: “Get her in, get her in, you’ve messed with the wrong Muslims, we’re going to kill you.”

Nazma Ditta was threatened by her sisters as she planned to leave home and move in with Harrison. They said “Just wait til we get hold of you”. They plotted to send Nama to Pakistan on a one-way ticket.

In court, Tamoor Ditta, 26, was sentenced to six years prison; Ghazala Ditta, 31, Aftah Ditta, 32, and Nighat Morris, 39, were each sentenced to five years and four months; Tosif Ditta, 34, and Nayyar Mehmood, 38, earned three years and six months at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

Some families, eh. It makes you wonder about the parents and the two siblings who didn’t get involved. What part did family pressure play in this matter?

Anorak is also interested in how this story was reported. None of the guilty siblings were charged with a hate crime. In a country where you can be imprisoned for 56 days for a racist tweet, the police ruled that race was not an issue in this matter. What about homophobia, was that an issue?

A hate incident is defined as ‘any incident, which may or may not constitute a criminal offence, perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hate’.

And you can be a racist if, as the Macpherson report into Stephen Lawrence’s murder told us, racism “can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people”. You can be an unwitting racist.

Let’s see what the headlines told us:

An anti-gay crime:

ITV: “Six family members who tried to kidnap sister’s lesbian lover await sentencing”

Clearly, this story can be altered to fit with an agenda. If you don’t like Muslims, then the story is typical of them. If you want to highlight homophobic attacks, then that’s the angle to focus on. If you want to focus on racism, that’s easy to do.

But whatever angle you chose to take, none of it makes this unusual matter a hate crime. The police decided that the siblings did not act with a “guilty mind” driven by prejudice. Fair enough. Punish the criminals for their actions not their thoughts. But when you can be arrested for a tweet such a decision makes a mockery of the hate crime laws…